AMD showcased Ryzen as well as Vega architectures at CES. While details weren’t provided, Hardwareluxx.de managed to find out more about the upcoming CPU architecture, most importantly base and turbo clocks of the Ryzen sample.

Image Source: hardwareluxx.de

The chip used at CES was clocked at 3.6 GHz base clock, with turbo clock going up to 3.9 GHz, impressive results. As you can see on the picture, the CPU used at demo booth was clocked at 3.6 GHz, and the sample used is codenamed “1D3601A2M88F3_39/36_N” meaning that the turbo clock us set at 3.9 GHz (39/36 shows base and turbo clocks). Stepping used was F3, but the guys over at Canard PC Hardware found out that the Ryzen F4 stepping is already finalized, allowing the CPU to go up to 4 GHz while in Turbo mode.

The numbers are higher than Intel’s Core i7-6900K, a CPU which can go up to 3.7 GHz in Turbo. This means Ryzen will probably be a solid overclocking choice, and should also be ahead of Intel when used for video games since games usually benefit from higher clock rates.

All this means the Ryzen will be an excellent choice, not just for gamers, but also for professionals since a few megahertz higher clocks can shave off lots of time for rendering tasks. The current Turbo clock (3.9 GHz) is more than enough for games, and if the upcoming Vega GPU architecture is as good as Ryzen, gamers could switch to AMD instead going with the good old Intel+NVidia combo.

Ryzen should be launched during Q1, 2017, and if all goes according to plan AMD should release Ryzen and Vega simultaneously, providing users with a great CPU/GPU combo. For now, even though F4 stepping is reportedly finalized, it is unknown will Ryzen arrive with F3 of F4 stepping. It seems AMD finally made a CPU that can compete with Intel’s high-end solutions, and it would be awesome if AMD returned to its former glory. Competition is always a good thing and if the price ends up being lower than the price of high-end i7 CPUs, Intel will most certainly have to reduce prices in order to stay competitive.